Oregon County Bans All Marriages
Well. that’s a fine solution to the gay marriage issue. My only comment is this — if I’m a single person in that county, living with my significant other (who has better health insurance coverage that I do), I sue someone (my S.O.’s employer, their healthcare provider) for not providing me with coverage, since there is no legal definition of “marriage” where I live. I hope the county is ready to pony up and pay for health care coverage for unmarried partners.
And here’s a nice comparision of the “differences” between Bush and Kerry.
Posted on 24 March 2004
Dinner time at our place can’t generally be defined by a single time (say, 6:00pm). A few nights a week, Jen and I both try to go to the gym, so she’ll climb as soon as I get home (or as soon as she picks me up at the bottom of the hill), I’ll hang out with the boy, feed him, and get him ready for bed, then I’ll head to the gym once she’s home and putting him to bed. I usually something at some point, and Jen will eat the rest of whatever that is (typically mac & cheese) when she gets home. Seb will “eat” (read sit in his high chair for an hour, eat some of food, and yell a lot) anytime between 6 and 7. Even on nights that we don’t climb, we don’t always eat together, simply because dinner for us isn’t ready by the time Seb is ready to eat.
But last night was one of those rare nights that we gathered around our dining room table to eat as a family. Seb sat happily in his high chair, eating a mish-mash of vegetables, pasta, and apple sauce. Jen and I happily munched pizza and greens and beans. We were, for a moment, the nuclear family. And it felt good, especially since Seb was actually eating his entire dinner and not complaining about it.
In other good news, Enrico’s cafe in the Strip will be opening on Saturdays starting April 11. The weekly trip for pizza, paninis and greens will begin again! I’m glad they decided to reopen the cafe — the new place in Shadyside is just too swanky to have the same cool chaotic feel as the Strip. Let the eating begin!
Posted on 23 March 2004
Here’s an interesting discussion on Slashdot with quite a headline:
Only 32% of Java developers really know Java
And as one poster pointed out, only 5% of people don’t stretch the truth on their resumes.
Some of the more interesting posts dealt with the interview process, and what can be considered “fair game.” Having been on my fair share of technical interviews over the past few years, I’ve seen it all, from completely non-technical interviews (“what person has most affected your life”) to questions right out of a certification exam (“describe how to store an object as a reference in the Java Virtual Machine”). I’ve also had to write my fair share of code for interviews. Most of the time, I’ve been given access to reference materials, but sometimes I wasn’t. And sometimes I was asked to ask to write a recursive Fibonacci class (“umm, did you notice on my resume that I don’t have a degree in computer science? When was the last time you wrote a recursive Fibonacci method in the process of designing a website?“).
I don’t mind answering technical questions, and I don’t mind writing code. I mean, that is what they’re hiring me to do. I’m not a big fan of the certification questions, since most people who take the certification exams study like a medical student before them. Why should I be expected to have the inner workings of the Java VM or esoteric APIs memorized? What programmer doesn’t consult a book or Google several times a week? Programming is a process, and you’ve got to know fundamentals to do your job well, but knowing what methods are available to an obscure API class doesn’t count as knowing the fundamentals.
Posted on 20 March 2004
For the first time ever, I’m involved in an NCAA tournament pool at work. It’s a measly $5, so I could do without a couple of espressos during the week to waste time with my co-workers as March Madness begins.
It was a rough first day. Currently, I’m holding down last place, though I’m only a few points behind the pack. I picked fairly conservatively (unlike some people who picked Pitt to win it all. One co-worker, when he saw those picks, said he’d be glad to donate $5 to see Pitt win the championship), but I clearly missed the first round upsets. My upset picks? UTEP over Maryland and Air Force over North Carolina. UTEP lost at the buzzer, and Air Force played well, but ran out of gas and lost. I also missed a couple of the 8-9 games, and so here I am, in last place.
Fortunately, none of my Elite Eight teams have lost, so I still feel good about those picks, but we’ll see how the weekend plays out before I figure out how to spend my winnings….
Posted on 19 March 2004
I’ve been reading a lot of the opinions flying around in the days after the Madrid bombing and the subsequent shift in government power (the conservative prime minister was not re-elected, replaced by the Socialist candidate). As expected, conservatives are claiming “the terrorists have won in Spain” and their gloomy forecast is that if the U.S. support in Europe wanes, the terrorists will win the war. Part of me thinks that there is some kernel of truth in that statement, but then I remember that conservatives are focusing this on the U.S. action in Iraq. They seem to forget that the war in Afghanistan was supported by the United Nations, and that many nations have troops on the ground there. It’s the war on Iraq that has caused so muc international friction.
That said, I’ve been thinking about this concept of waging the war on terrorism at all costs, even if it means that terrorist wage their war in smaller countries, or even here in the U.S. And I think about the state things of things in Israel and Palestine, where the Israelis have been fighting the terrorists for decades. Parts of Israel are in a constant state of disrepair thanks to the fight against the Palestinian terrorists. The sound of machine guns, tanks, artillery fire, and bombs are an everyday occurrence. The question is, if the Bush administration is ready to fight terrorism (in all its forms), is it ready to suffer the consequences of turning other countries (and possibly our own) into a batte zone? Could we accept repeated terrorist attacks as we ratchet up the war on terrorism?
Posted on 17 March 2004
As I was wandering around today during lunch, I saw a group of kids (who no doubt should have been in school or something) riding around town on BMX bikes. Nothing too interesting there, until the pack came up to a red light, and each one of them had to do a Fred Flintstone-style, jump-off-the-saddle-and-land-on-their-feet stop. Upon closer inspection, the bikes proved to have no brakes, and the bikes weren’t fixed — as they rode by I heard the distinct click-click-click of freewheels. I don’t quite get it. I guess everyone is doin’ it though. To each their own…..
Posted on 15 March 2004
As promised, here it is — all the news and notes from Rally Mexico.
First, a quick look at the podium:
1. Markko Martin
2. Francois Duval
3. Carlos Sainz
An impressive sweep for Ford, but it didn’t happen without quite a bit of luck. Petter Solberg started the rally quite fast, and he and Seb Loeb swapped scratch times on Day 1. Solberg set a torrid pace on Saturday, however, and extended his lead by sweeping the day’s stages. Unfortunately, the celebration was short-lived. Solberg was a assessed a one minute penalty for coming into a time stop late thanks to a dead battery in his Impreza. To make matters worse, the marshalls were looking into whether or not Solberg received outside help getting his car into service, which could lead to an additional penalty of five minutes. More on that later….
At the same time, Seb Loeb hit a rock in his Xsara, lost oil pressure, and promptly retired. So much for three consecutive wins.
Thanks to Solberg’s initial penalty and Loeb’s retirement, Markko Martin was handed the lead. Martin had slipped a bit on day two, and without the leaders’ misfortunes, Martin would have only been fighting for third, but now he was leading.
Before the end of the day, Solberg was assess an additional five minute penalty for receiving outside assistance. Suddenly the Norwegian dropped out of the top ten. This didn’t affect his confidence, though, and Solberg stormed through the final stages of the day, taking back over three minutes of time and landing in fifth going into day 3 (Solberg adroitly pointed out overnight that had he not been assessed the penalties his pace would have given him a two minute cushion over the rest of the field.
Heading into day 3 it looked like Carlos Sainz could challenge Martin, but a spin and roll put the Spainard in third place to stay. Ford’ Francois Duval looked quick holding down third, and Sainz’s roll kept him from challenging the youngster.
Mexico was a huge disappointment for Peugeot. Harri Rovanpera’s experience on the rally was all for nothing as he finished tenth, never looking comfortable behind the wheel of the 307. Marcus Gronholm barely salvaged his rally by winning the final two stages, but his 307 was slowed by mechanical difficulties on day two. It will interesting to see what the fickle Peugeot team does with Rovanpera — before the rally he was their man. Now I wouldn’t be surprised to see Freddy Loix made a few appearances in the 307.
Two drivers had very positive rallies. Mikko Hirvonen finished fifth, his first points score for Subaru. He held fourth until the final stages when Solberg passed him. This is a good sign for the young Finn, and the team should expect more good things on other gravel rallies this year. Gilles Panizzi also had a good rally in the new Lancer, finishing in the points in eighth. The car still had some growing pains, but Panizzi was pleased with the progress since Sweden.
Last bit of interesting news — Martin won the rally yet he only set a single scratch time. Solberg won the majority of the stages (9 overall) yet only finished fourth thanks to the time penalties.
Next up, New Zealand on April 14.
Posted on 14 March 2004
If the initial reports are true, and the bombing in Spain was committed by an group working with Al Queda rather than the Basque separatist group ETA, will the current administration in America work directly with Spain to find the culprits? Or, if it’s discovered that ETA was in fact responsible for the bombing, but received help from Al Queda, will George Bush send our military in the Pyrenes to destroy the Basque group, much like he did in Afghanistan after the 9/11 bombings?
Interesting side note. During a discussion we had on Friday night with some friends, it was pointed out that the bombing in Spain did statistically as much damage as the 9/11 attacks, based on Spain’s population.
Posted on 14 March 2004
Weekend news update….
First, I finally bit the bullet and bought a laptop — a brand new Compaq Presario 2500. It’s got a Celeron processor, a reasonable amount of RAM, and a wireless card. I also purchased a new D-Link wireless router to replace our existing router. This has been an adventure….
Getting the wireless working was relatively pain-free. I still need to upgrade the encryption mechanism (I’m just using WEP at the moment), but otherwise there have been no problems, and since the router and card are 802.11g, it’s plenty fast. But, getting the new router to talk to the Verizon DSL modem has been a different story. Currently, the wireless router just creates a new subnet, rather than handling the DSL connection itself. It works just fine as a subnet router — just don’t ask it to connect to the internet. Bleh. I’ve combed the newsgroups, and found nothing enlightening, so it may be time to call customer service.
Seb is currently teething, and he may have a bit of a cold. Consequently, he is generally an unhappy camper. He hasn’t been eating much, hasn’t been napping much, and wants to be held more than usual. Last night was the only “bad” night, as he was awake for an hour and half or so, and crying most of that time. We were able to take him out to dinner last night, though. We went over to the Sharp Edge (a family friendly pub if there ever was one). He had a good time, offering bits of his dinner to the kids at the surrounding tables.
Other news…if the weather doesn’t break soon, I may quit climbing. Ok, so that was a bit of overstatement, but I’ve been quite bored at the gym lately, and it’s hard to get too psyched to train in the gym without the carrot of real rock dangled in front of me. So I’ve decided to put our fingerboard to use again to replace a trip or two to the gym every week. Lately I just haven’t felt strong in the gym, and I think the lack of a lot of “hard” bouldering is the reason. Maybe a few weeks of fingerboarding will cure my ills.
It’s been an eventful Rally Mexico so far, with lots of news. But I’ll hold off on writing anything until the event finishes this afternoon….
Posted on 14 March 2004